Gulnar Bazhkenova

Affiliated media: Orda.kz , Editor-in-chief

Incident date: February 28, 2023

Attack type:

• Warnings, pre-trial complaints, questioning and other extra-judicial actions

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Adil Soz

Location: Kazakhstan, Almaty, Almaty

Additional information:

The editor-in-chief of Orda Gulnar Bazhkenova learnt from a message in the Telegram channel Abzhanews that the Anti-Corruption Service demanded that Abzhanews author Makhambet Abzhan, who was sentenced to 9 years in prison on extortion charges, testify against her. It was also reported that the prosecutor conducted some kind of check against Gulnar Bazhkenova and found nothing. Bazhkenova does not understand what testimony the Anti-Corruption Service wanted from Abzhan. «The investigators had the journalist’s phone at their disposal, and they must have read all our correspondence, quite innocent (...) All of Abzhan’s publications on Orda are freely available, and they give a clear idea of the nature of our short but groovy cooperation. It’s exclusively parliamentary and government news, something we always need from Astana», — says Bazhkenova.